Devils Timo Meier Trade Complete, Conditional Draft Pick Finalized With Sharks

After the New Jersey Devils were mathematically eliminated from the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs on Tuesday, their pending conditional draft pick with the San Jose Sharks became finalized.

That’s right. The Timo Meier trade became finalized after the Devils’ loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs earlier this week.

In addition to Meier in last winter’s blockbuster deal, New Jersey also received Timur Ibragimov, defensemen Scott Harrington and Santeri Hatakka, goaltender Zachary Emond as well as a fifth-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft.

In exchange, the Devils sent a conditional first-round pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, prospect defensemen Shakir Mukhamadullin and Nikita Okhotiuk; forwards Andreas Johnsson and Fabian Zetterlund; a conditional 2024 second-round pick and a seventh-round selection in the 2024 NHL draft. And San Jose retained 50% of Meier’s former salary as part of the deal.

The conditional pick in focus here is the 2024 conditional second-round pick at the upcoming draft.

The condition attached to the draft selection that the Sharks now own was if New Jersey makes the 2024 Eastern Conference Final, the pick upgrades to a 2024 first-round pick.

Well, the Devils won’t even make it to the postseason. Therefore, the Sharks will get New Jersey’s 2024 second-round pick.

Obviously, it’s bad news that the Devils will not make the playoffs after seemingly establishing themselves last season as a perennial playoff contender last year.

However, the silver lining is that the Devils have needs to address this summer, and keeping their first-round pick this year should certainly help General Manager Tom Fitzgerald check a box on his shopping list at the draft.

Or, at the very least, it should allow the Devils to re-stock their prospect pool with exciting talent after players such as Luke Hughes, Simon Nemec, and Alexander Holtz all graduated from prospects to NHLers.

The Devils currently have a 3.5% chance to win the first-overall selection for a shot at esteemed prospect Maclkin Celebrini. The odds of winning the Celebrini sweepstakes are unlikely but never say never.

At this point, the Devils are looking at a top-10 selection on June 28th.

Time will tell if they will use it, or trade it.

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